"Maybe being able to see what I was doing has been a distraction all along. This whole time, I should've just been letting my elite athleticism and God-given talent take over. My eyes have been holding me back from greatness."
— Drew Gooden, I bought every weird ad I saw for a month
Let's face it—we're not going to be good at everything we do in life. People have strengths and they have weaknesses, as does every well-written character. It can be fun drama in a story when a character has to do something they're bad at, but it can be just as fun to see someone overcome those obstacles. Normally this means putting in a lot of hard work, some elbow grease, and maybe a Training Montage... but in the case of this trope, it means just wearing a blindfold.
Yes, some characters prove to have natural talent at something when they're unaware of what they're doing. The implication is that they overthink it otherwise, and that not looking allows them to succeed purely by accident. It doesn't have to be as specific as wearing a blindfold—even just doing it while looking at their phone, being distracted, or talking to someone can count. Perhaps they're Blind Without Them but manage to succeed when not wearing glasses, or perhaps they just fly through something while not realizing they've done it. It may even just be something they do subconsciously, like only memorizing something while multitasking on everything else. The point is, they can only succeed when they have no idea what they're doing.
This doesn't mean they'll always have to use this tactic. Sometimes they start out succeeding only by accident and then gaining the skills to do it every time. Otherwise, it's a gag that showcases a character's oddities, or used to show that true skill comes from the heart, not the mind.
Centipede's Dilemma is the other side of the coin, wherein a naturally skilled character loses said ability due to overthinking it. Also compare Offhand Backhand, You Were Trying Too Hard, and Achievements in Ignorance. See also Disability Superpower.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- How Not to Summon a Demon Lord: As a Cross Reverie player, Takuma Sakamoto was an expert potionmaker. However, when he becomes Trapped in Another World as his Player Character Diablo, he initially has no idea how to make them. He finally figures out that the only way he can make them is by staring at Shera's bosom so that he's thinking about her assets instead of potionmaking.
- Is the Order a Rabbit?: While working as a barista at the Rabbit House cafe, the idiot protagonist Hoto Cocoa laments that she doesn't have a special skill like her co-workers. She then quickly and effortlessly calculates a very complex receipt in her head for a customer. Afterwards, she goes right back to lamenting that she doesn't have a special skill.
- YuruYuri: Chinatsu Yoshikawa is normally such a terrible artist that her "paintings"
◊ make anybody who look upon them want to gouge their eyes out. However, after coming down with a cold, she goes to school anyway to see her crush, Yui. Somehow, her sickness turns her into The Ace at everything. She sketches a flawless pencil drawing of Yui in art class, scores an effortless three-point shot in gym while fainting, cooks the most delicious-looking meal her Home Ec class has ever seen, recites a passage from her English textbook in perfect English, and writes out Pi on the chalkboard to over a hundred places. Yet, in her fevered state, she dismisses it all as 'a slump'.
Films — Animation
- In Hercules, during "One Last Hope", Hercules is going through a Training Montage and, at one point, is throwing swords at a target. All of his previous attempts were wildly off target. When he throws the last sword, he's sad and looking away, and that's what lands the bullseye. As Phil says:
Like painting a masterpieceIt's a work of heart
- How to Train Your Dragon (2010): Hiccup, while riding Toothless' back for the first time, uses a reference sheet to remind himself of how to steer the tailfin he's crafted. Downplayed, as he gets the hang of it pretty quickly, but after falling off the saddle and losing his grip on the sheet, he starts flying by instinct and absolutely masters it.
- Kung Fu Panda: When Po tries to focus on learning kung fu the traditional way, he simply isn't good at it despite his efforts. However, one morning Shifu discovers Po performing some incredible physical feats in order to get food concealed in high cupboards and shelves. Po initially dismisses this, saying he was just looking for comfort food and didn't even realise what he'd done, but this leads Shifu to realise he can train Po; he just has to adjust his training methods to best suit the student. Shifu later lampshades this:
Shifu: When you focus on kung fu, when you concentrate...you stink. But perhaps that is my fault. I cannot train you the way I have trained the Five. I now see that the way to get through to you, is with this. [pulls out a bowl of dumplings]
Films — Live-Action
- The King's Speech: Lionel proves to George that his stutter is psychological in origin by asking George to recite a passage of text while loud music is playing through headphones. George's stutter disappears entirely when he can't hear his own voice.
Literature
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid: In Big Shot, Greg learns he can only make a shot in basketball when he throws it backwards.
- Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Nanao's biggest obstacle in learning magic is that a lot of the strange tricks she pulls off, especially while in Innocent Color mode, she does so on pure instinct. She's so used to controlling her body's own energy from her sword trainingnote that she does it without conscious thought, and is thus able to do things like parrying spells with her katana by instinctively synchronizing to the incoming element and disrupting it, and inventing the Seventh Spellblade when she has to close the distance to Miligan before Miligan's Deadly Gaze can hit her, and so wills herself to strike faster than the speed of light. But because it's all instinct, she's often unable to deliberately repeat such feats, and struggles to cast basic spells because they require her to project her magic outside her body, which she's completely unused to.
- Warrior Cats: Played with in Jayfeather's case. He's naturally blind, and while this usually means he's seen as less capable than his clanmates, he can function pretty much effortlessly despite it. When he's with the Ancients, he has his sight, but finds he's still unable to hunt unless his eyes are closed.
Live-Action TV
- House of Anubis: Subverted in season 2. When Jerome is trying to find a better ping-pong partner than Alfie, he unhappily hits the ball across the table and sends it flying. Amber, without even thinking about it, hits it back to him with her mirror, and is confused when he asks about it. It seems like it's setting her up as an unknowingly talented player, but then she reveals that she's actually a 3-time ping-pong champion, and the accidental playing was just an extension of her raw abilities.
Web Video
- The Angry Video Game Nerd: In his Zelda II: The Adventure of Link review, the Nerd finds it impossible to beat the Final Boss, Dark Link, so he puts on the Power Glove while sarcastically declaring it to be a better challenge. After that, he stops paying attention to the game and starts giving his concluding remarks to the review. He gesticulates while speaking, and these simple hand movements happen to be registered by the Power Glove in such a way that allows Link to beat Dark Link. The Nerd remains completely oblivious to his own unintentional victory until he turns around and shuts off the television.
- Drew Gooden: In "I bought every weird ad I saw for a month", Drew buys a product that covers your eyes and is meant to help you play basketball better. He launches into a skit where he's hopeless at getting any shots when looking, but suddenly becomes a basketball pro while using "Hand In Yo Face", eventually taking his playing to the next level- the NBA, where he won the championship for over forty years in a row on every single team, in a gag referencing the other Drew Gooden.
- Game Grumps:
- Occurred once in a Mario Maker episode. Arin, who is often known to struggle at games, started to play a level submitted by a fan, but wanted to read the comments first. In the process, he effortlessly beat the level without even realizing what he did, to Danny's amazement. Arin even admitted to not having any idea what the level looked like because he wasn't looking at it.
- Arin invokes this when playing the very difficult Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril, realizing that he does slightly better in the boss fight when he distracts himself by telling improv stories. However, he still never beats the level (not helped that, due to being distracted, he accidentally hits "END" and resets his progress), though a 2022 Game Grumps Live show featured a (scripted) ending where his improv does help him finally beat the level.
- Also invoked when playing Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: whenever Dan uses the Earth Tremor move, which involves hitting buttons at precise moments, he asks Arin to distract him by talking so Dan can focus without speaking or overthinking. It works most of the time.
Western Animation
- Pepper Ann: In one episode, an art contest is held by the school. Milo is expected to easily win, given his talent, but he enters a creative block and can't produce art anymore. He later understands that he can do art only when he is mindlessly and freely following his inspiration, rather than when he needs to think of a specific goal.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "Testing, Testing, 123", Rainbow Dash is trying to study for a Wonderbolt's test, but can't focus on any of her friend's methods. Depressed, she takes off on a flight, where Twilight realizes that Dash can memorize and keep track of everything going on while she's flying without even thinking. She uses this to trick Dash into learning the history, by having the citizens of Ponyville perform scenes while under her usual flight path.
- SpongeBob SquarePants:
- In "Pickles," SpongeBob suffers a breakdown when he thinks he forgot to put pickles on a Krabby Patty, and becomes unable to remember the Krabby Patty recipe or replicate it. Only when he rants at Mr. Krabs about how he can't make the burger anymore is he able to (subconsciously) put together the entire burger perfectly, indicating that he instinctively knows how to make it, but his anxiety and self-doubt got in the way.
SpongeBob: I finally realize that I can't do it! I can't do it, Mr. Krabs! I'm a failure!
Mr. Krabs: Don't talk like that!
SpongeBob: Don't you get it, you crustaceous cheapskate? I can't make a Double Krabby Patty with the works! I can't [makes patty as he tells Mr. Krabs the ingredients] put a patty on a bun, with lettuce, cheese, onions, tomatoes, ketchup, mustard, pickles, and top bun together in that order! [realizes what he did]
Mr. Krabs: It's time. - In "Mrs. Puff, You're Fired", SpongeBob gets a new, Drill Sergeant Nasty boating school teacher, who forces him to crawl over every single pebble and brick of the driving course until he can do it blindfolded. Then he moves on to driving blindfolded. It's not until the final exam that they realize they missed a step in the middle: SpongeBob can only drive in his normal way unless he's blindfolded.
- In "Artist Unknown", SpongeBob demonstrates innate artistic ability when he isn't thinking too hard about what he's doing, including making an entire sculpture with a single tap of the chisel. However, after he has his confidence crushed, he can't do a single thing because his focus is on doing art "correctly". Then, when Squidward gets frustrated because SpongeBob can't recreate his previous successes, he trashes the art studio and destroys a block of marble... creating an almost-exact David replica.
- In "Pickles," SpongeBob suffers a breakdown when he thinks he forgot to put pickles on a Krabby Patty, and becomes unable to remember the Krabby Patty recipe or replicate it. Only when he rants at Mr. Krabs about how he can't make the burger anymore is he able to (subconsciously) put together the entire burger perfectly, indicating that he instinctively knows how to make it, but his anxiety and self-doubt got in the way.
